Economics Program Newsletter 2015 - 2016...Economics Program Newsletter 2015 - 2016. Dear Friends...

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Economics Program Newsletter 2015 - 2016

Dear Friends and Alumni of the Economics Program:

Best Holiday Wishes from the Ph.D. Program in Economics! With this sixth edition of our Newsletter, I am pleased to share with you about the recent news from our Program. First off, as of July 2015, our EO office (Room 4 of Suite 5313 as you may remember) has a new resident. We all thank Merih Uctum for her enthusiastic and tireless work as the Executive Officer over the previous six years, during which the Program evolved in many different ways that have been illustrated in previous newsletters. Don’t worry, she isn’t retiring any time soon. Over this past year, she has been present at the Graduate Center almost as frequently as she used to be during her EO years. As the new EO, I am amazed about the scope of the tasks that are to be done, ranging from administrative (obviously) to academic (obviously) to counseling and cajoling and groveling (not so obviously). Apart from many of those admin meetings, it isn’t a particularly boring job. As of August 2015, Paul Krugman officially joined our Program as a (highly) Distinguished Professor. We celebrated his appointment with a lecture and a reception on 19 February 2016. This past year, he was involved in many public events (see pp.10-13), and he brings awareness to our Program also through his widely read blog and op-ed articles in the New York Times. This coming Spring semester, he will be teaching a course on the Economics of the Welfare State. With the new Trump administration getting underway in January, the course will surely be infused with a few “news items of the day.” As you may have read in the news, despite favorable budgetary outcomes at the state and city levels, CUNY has faced serious budgetary headwinds over the past two years, in part because of a tug-of-war between the state and the city about CUNY’s funding. As a result, CUNY’s budget was cut; the Graduate Center’s budget was cut; and the Program’s budget was cut. So, yes, the little people on the ground felt the pain: the Program was allowed to admit only 15 students (down from 18 in previous years); student stipends and faculty salaries remained frozen; the number of courses was reduced a bit; and some budgetary funds were reduced. But the winds are dying down and the stormy skies are brightening. In January, stipends and salaries will rise, and we hope that before long the number of admission seats will rise back to 18 too. On the bright side—and a very bright one it is—, the Program graduated 16 students during the 2015-16 academic year. These students departed to many places around the world: tenure track positions at the College of Staten Island, Fashion Institute of Technology (NYC), Iona College, and University of Strathclyde (Scotland); visiting positions at Queens College and William Patterson University; postdoctoral fellowships at MIT, NYU, and the NBER;

IN THIS EDITION:

PROGRAM ACTIVITIES p. 3,8,9

STUDENT

SPOTLIGHT pp. 4-5

FACULTY NEWS

p. 5

2016 GRADUATES p. 6-7

PAUL KRUGMAN

p. 10-13

STUDENT AWARDS p. 14-15

ALUMNI, FACULTY

& STUDENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS

p. 16-22

ADDITIONS TO OUR FAMILY

p. 22

Visit our Website:

www.gc.cuny.edu/economics

http://www.gc.cuny.edu/economics


GC Economics Program Newsletter 2015-2016

P h . D . P r o g r a m I n E c o n o m i c s , th e G r a d u a t e C e n te r , C i t y U n i v e r s i t y o f N e w Y o r k , 3 6 5 5 t h A v e n u e , N e w Y o r k , N Y 1 0 0 1 6

www.gc .c u ny. e du /eco no m ics Em ai l : eco nomic s @gc .cu ny. e du P ho ne : 2 12 817 826 5

academic research positions at Boston College and the University of West Florida; corporate positions at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, AIG, Ernst and Young, and Opus Financial Services; and at a consultant position with the United Nations. See pp.6-7 for a list of our new graduates and the dissertations they have written. At our Alumni Day on 4 March 2016, Paul Krugman hosted Robert J. Gordon of Northwestern University for a fascinating and well-attended conversation about his newly published book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth (Princeton University Press, 2016). Aside from the usual speakers at our weekly seminar, we also hosted four speakers from around the world on the topic of inequality. Together with dissertation seminars and weekly or biweekly study groups on applied microeconomics, inequality, and macroeconomics, the GC is an excited place to study economics. The Economics community is faculty, students, alumni, and staff. • During 2015, by my count, our faculty published 39 papers and book chapters. See pages 17-21 of

this Newsletter for the details. • We are of course very proud of our students as they publish their papers in academic journals and

present their research at conferences. Within the Graduate Center as well, their work is recognized. Furthermore, most importantly, thanks to the generous contributions of our alumni and benefactors, we are able to offer prizes for best papers and fellowships to help them with their studies. This support is invaluable: it honors students for their accomplishments and it helps them with their cost of living. More information about this news is on pages 14-15 and 21-22 of this Newsletter.

• For me personally, it is always a moment of joy when a student graduates and formally starts a career, be it in the corporate world, in government, or in academia. But the accomplishments of our alumni are more than reports on the progress of these careers: alumni are the face of our Program; they are what people know about the PhD Program in Economics at the CUNY Graduate Center. Our website (http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Economics/Job-Placement) lists the many organizations that employ our alumni. Pages 16-17 of this newsletter has a few more news items that our alumni shared with us.

• Our office would not function without the able work of Ms. Diana Santiago, our Administrative Program Officer, who also supervises a college assistant and several first-year students who help out in the office.

Please help us keep our Rolodex files up to date by sending us any changes in your professional life and keep in touch by sharing with us major events in your lives. You can email any new information to me ([email protected]) or Diana ([email protected]). Wim Vijverberg Professor and Executive Officer Ph.D. Program in Economics


mailto:[email protected]

http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Economics/Job-Placement

http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Economics/Job-Placement




Admissions and fellowships Our sixteen incoming students are coming to us from seven different countries. Seven of the incoming students received Graduate Center Fellowships; eight students obtained tuition fellowships; and one student is self-funded. These students were selected from an applicant pool of 137 individuals from 21 countries. Notably, while other programs at the Graduate Center reported smaller numbers of applicants last year, we actually saw a slight increase. Some applicants heard of us through our alumni (Thank You!!); others received information from faculty advisers; and quite a few found us with a Google search. Student activities and academic recognition Timothy Roeper was awarded Graduate Center Dissertation Year Fellowship for his work “An Examination of the Impact of Regents Exams and Proximity to A Public College on Economic Opportunity” and Morgan Williams was awarded a Graduate Center Dissertation Award for his work “Essays in the Economics of Crime and Mass Incarceration.”

Since 2015, our students received several fellowships and grants and published articles. Four of our students were awarded a Doctoral Student Research Grant: Andreas Kakolyris for his work on “Modeling blind principal bid: a large deviation approach”, Efstathia Korkou for her work on “Measurements of risk-taking behaviors across different demographic subgroups”, Chiao-Han Lin for her work on “Is drug prevalence exacerbated by dependent coverage?”, and Alev Yildirim for her work on “Essays on banking and corporate finance.”

Congratulations to Orkideh Gharehgozli for receiving the interdisciplinary ARC (Advance Research Collaborative) award of the Graduate Center to conduct research on labor market inequality. Student Research Colloquia New this year and organized by Prof. Merih Uctum, the Program hosted three Student Research Colloquia where students present their latest research. The colloquia have a conference session format, with short presentations, comments from a discussant, and questions from the floor. • 28 October 2016: Financial Economics: Biwei Chen, Ossama Elhadary, Andreas Kakolyris,

Georgios Koimisis, Alev Yildirim • 22 November 2016: Applied Macroeconomics and Finance: Irina Ayzenberg, Ilhami Gunduz,

Tzuhao Huang, Gunnar Poppe Yanez, Evan Warshaw, Li Zhao • 13 December 2016: Applied Microeconomics: Anna Arakelyan, Gonzalo Cordoba, Aboozar

Hadavand, Paloma Lopez de Mesa Moyano, Zac Santamaria, Morgan Williams

Our Activities






Morgan Williams was awarded a Research (NBER) Pre-doctoral Fellowship in Aging and Health Economics for the academic year 2016-2017. This prestigious fellowship is funded by a training grant from the National Institute on Aging to the NBER. The fellowship pays a 12-month stipend of $23,376 and at least partial tuition support. In addition, some funds are available for travel and research support. Typically, fellows spend the year in residence at the NBER office in Cambridge, adjacent to the main campus of Harvard

University. They attend and present their work at seminars at Harvard, MIT, and the Bureau. In addition, they interact with some of the most distinguished economists in the fields of health economics, labor economics, and public economics. Morgan is writing his dissertation under the guidance of Prof. Michael Grossman.

Agustin Indaco was in the GC’s spotlight twice because of his nifty modern interdisciplinary research. • He was selected to present the Graduate Center’s interactive installation “On Broadway” at NYC Media Lab’s annual summit on Friday, September 25, 2016. "On Broadway" was created by Professor Lev Manovich (Computer Science), whose projects focus on cultural analytics, data visualization, and social computing. The project was a result of a unique collaboration between the world’s leading information visualization designer, professional

interaction and web designers, computer scientists, and also Ph.D. students from the GC from four different programs (Economics, Art History, Linguistics and Anthropology). "On Broadway" showcases New York City through the use of 40 million images and data points collected from 13 miles of Broadway. In Agustin’s words: “We wanted to show a new visual way of representing a city, where users could scroll up and down different blocks on Broadway and find out what the facade looks like, what type of Instagram images are taken there, the volume of taxi pick-ups and drop-offs, the number of Tweets posted and many other characteristics that are available nowadays. We wanted to move away from the conventional ways of showing data on graphs or on maps and create a new way of representing life in the 21st-century city.” (See Medium.) (cont’d)

Student Spotlight



http://www.on-broadway.nyc/

http://www.nycmedialab.org/

https://medium.com/@justinhendrix/previewing-nyc-media-lab-s-annual-summit-demo-session-ce5169df964e

http://www.on-broadway.nyc/




The summit, billed as “a snapshot of the best thinking, projects, and talent in digital media from universities in NYC and beyond,” took place at the NYU Skirball Center. For more on this NYC Media Lab summit, go to https://nycmedialabsummit.splashthat.com/ • Agustin was also selected as one of only five PhD students nationwide to participate in Bloomberg’s Data for Good Exchange 2016 (D4GX), a program that connects data scientists with nonprofits and municipalities to improve public welfare. This award includes $20,000 in funding. Agustin will be hosted by the municipality of Miami. Using his skills in applied econometrics, Big Data, and labor economics, he will explore the problem of algae blooms, which can have harmful effects not only on tourism but also on the aquatic ecosystem. In particular, he will develop a machine learning model to predict cases of algal blooms in the Miami Beach coast. This model will help local officials address algal bloom cases before they materialize.

Sangeeta Pratap received the Banamex Prize in Economics in 2016, along with her co authors Carlos Urrutia and Felipe Meza, for their work "Credit, Misallocation and Productivity Growth". Established in 1952, the Banamex prize is the most important prize in Economics in Mexico, given annually by the Banamex Group for the "best research on the analysis and solutions for economic problems in Mexico". Professor Pratap’s work “Credit, Misallocation and Productivity Growth”, along with colleagues Carlos Urrutia and Felipe Meza of ITAM in Mexico, analyzes the linkages between the cost and availability of credit and the efficiency of different sectors in the economy. The authors find that despite a macroeconomic credit

crunch, it is possible to improve growth in an economy by reallocating scarce credit towards the sectors of the economy that are capable of improving their use of resources and thus raise productivity.

In November/December 2015 and again in the same months in 2016, Merih Uctum lent her considerable expertise to the New York State Assembly Ways and Means Committee, analyzing economic and revenue forecasts before its Board of Economic Advisors. Her report analyzed global economic trends and their potential impact on the U.S. and New York State economies.

Faculty News



https://nycmedialabsummit.splashthat.com/

https://nycmedialabsummit.splashthat.com/

https://www.bloomberg.com/company/d4gx/




The Commencement ceremonies at Lincoln Center, May, 2016

Markus Gehrsitz “Essays on the Economics of Health and Risky Behavior” Lecturer in Economics University of Strathclyde, Scotland, UK Yoko Katagiri “Firms’ Decisions to Enter a Market of Highly Defferentiated Pruducts: Apparel Industry and New York Fashion Week” Adjunct Assistant Professor of Economics Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY Sibel Korkmaz “Predicability of Bond Risk Premia with an Affine Term Structure Model” Economist AIG, New York, NY

Mei Liao “Changes in Economics Well-being of the Elderly” Research Assistant Center for the Study of Business and Government, Baruch College, CUNY,New York, NY Michael Malenbaum “Essays on Exchange Rate Pass-through” Assistant Professor of Economics Iona College, New Rochelle, NY Luc Marest “Optimal Targeting Regimes and Instrument Rules in the Basic New Keynesian Model” Visiting Assistant Professor Queens College, New York, NY

2016 Economics Ph.D. Recipients






Ruirui Sun “The Effect of Health Information Technology on Hospital Quality of Care” Staff Fellow Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. Aigbokhai Unuigbe “Essays in Health Economics” Research Economist Haas Center, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL Chang Xia “Essays in Chinese Financial Markets” Recruiter Opus Financial Services, New York, NY Zhendong Zhao “Essays on the Economics of Aging” Senior Consultant in Quantitative Advisory Service, Ernst & Young LLP, New York, NY Alice Zulkarnain “Essays on the Well-being of an Aging Population” Reseach Economist & Postdoctoral Fellow The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College & NBER, Boston, MA

Jesse Margolis “Essays in the Economics of Education and Health” Postdoctoral Fellow Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, New York, NY Stephen O'Connell “Essays in Labor and Development Economics” Postdoctoral Fellow SEII and Department of Economics, MIT, Boston, MA Oluwasheyi Oladipo “The Effects of Globalization on an Emerging Economy: the Case of South Africa” Consultant United Nations, New York, NY Hyoungsuk Shim “Essays on the Economic Analysis of Transportation Systems” Assistant professor School of Business, College of Staten Island, CUNY, New York, NY Yan Song “Essays in Health Economics of Cigarette Consumption” Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ






The 2016 Alumni Day, our annual celebration of the ending the current academic year, actually took place way before the end of the 2015-2016 year, namely on March 4th, 2015. This year the reception was short but brimming with excitement and anticipation of the discussion between Robert Gordon and Paul Krugman about the prospects of economic growth in the US, based on Gordon’s new and widely reviewed book The Rise and Fall of American Growth (Princeton University Press, 2016).

At the Alumni Day, Sallie Mae Bank awards were presented to Yuan Wang, Alev Yildirim, Sori Yoo, Jin Chung, and Sallie Mae Travel Award were presented to Alev Yildirim, Nathanial Johnson, Andreas Kakolyris and Gowun Park. (At a later date, Sallie Mae Bank awards were given to Paloma Lopez De Mesa Moyano, Rachel Rosenfeld, Biwei Chen, Nicholas Bauer, Orkideh Gharegozli, Prabuddha Ghosh, Chiao-Han Lin and Hiroshi Morita.)

Furthermore, Evan Warshaw was the recipient of the Nadia Doytch Award, and this year’s Salih Neftci Award was shared between Oren Shmuel and Alev Yildirim.

2016 Alumni Day and Other Events






During the 2015-2016 academic year, we organized three Open House events in order to recruit new students, and in Fall 2016, we had another three of such meetings.

In a relaxed atmosphere with some pizza, snacks, and soda, faculty and students welcomed visitors and provided them valuable information about the program, pointers about the application process, the program’s success in placing its graduates, and, not unimportantly, life in New York City. Typically, most of these visitors apply to our Program and several

are accepted. Others find out that they aren’t quite ready yet for a PhD study and spend another year preparing for the application process. And a few find out that, as we all know, a PhD-level education isn’t a mere continuation of undergraduate studies or even a Master’s curriculum.

At one of the Fall 2016 Open House events, we hosted a group of about 25 students and faculty from Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Mexico. Julio Huato (‘07) from St Francis College was their guide at the Graduate Center and NYC. Several of our.Spanish-speaking students (from Mexico, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and the US) and faculty

(Sangeeta Pratap) helped to make our guests feel welcome. For quite a few of these visiting students, graduate study is quite a new concept, a door that might open to new careers that they had not yet considered.

Together with Baruch College, the Program held its Math Camp in the middle of August 2015 and again in August 2016, before classes started. This “camp” consists of an intensive review of mathematics and statistics—five hours per day for ten days—and is continued during the first year in labs that complement the core courses. An introduction to Stata, Matlab, and Dynare is also on the menu.

To prepare our students for their job search, the Program organized several activities for job market participants. At Job Market Seminars, they learned about the steps that they need to take to get ready for job market entry, the process of applying for jobs, the interviews at the American Economic Association Meetings in January, the campus visits, and the follow up stage. They also had the option of participating in mock interviews and practice job talks.






Paul Krugman in the Spotlight

At the Graduate Center…

7 December 2015 Saving the World Economy: Paul Krugman and Olivier Blanchard in Conversation

18 February 2016 Inequality in NYC and Beyond: Mayor Bill de Blasio in Conversation with Paul Krugman

In 2013, Bill de Blasio ran for mayor pledging to address social and economic inequality. Halfway through his term, de Blasio discussed his progress with Paul Krugman at an event moderated by Janet Gornick, professor of political science and sociology and director of the LIS Center at the GC. Watch it at http://www.cuny.tv/show/cunytvspecial/PR2005096 Or access the entire transcript at http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/281-16/transcript-mayor-de-blasio-social-economic-inequality-conversation-paul

Paul Krugman engaged Olivier Blanchard, the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and Robert M. Solow Professor of Economics at MIT, in a discussion about recent crises around the world and how to prevent global economic collapse. Various topics were explored, including the fate of the Euro, the Greek bailout, the role of Asian markets, and the rise in part-time employment. Watch the event at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zndOEQnMC44



http://www.cuny.tv/show/cunytvspecial/PR2005096

http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/281-16/transcript-mayor-de-blasio-social-economic-inequality-conversation-paul



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zndOEQnMC44




11 May 2016 Globalization and Inequality: Paul Krugman, Janet Gornick, and Branko Milanovic Is globalization responsible for increased income

inequality? The complex relationship between these large-scale economic trends was the subject of a discussion between Paul Krugman, Janet Gornick (director of the LIS Center), and Branko Milanovic (Visiting Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center) who is the author of the new book Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization (Harvard University Press, 2016).

Watch this event at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76FsIlO06Xs

4 March 2016 The Rise and Fall of American Growth: Robert J. Gordon and Paul Krugman

Robert J. Gordon, author of The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War (Princeton Univ Press, 2016) spoke with Paul Krugman about his “magnificent new book” (The Economist). Krugman has called Gordon’s book “a magisterial combination of deep technological history, vivid portraits of daily life over the past six generations and careful economic analysis" (New York Times Book Review). Gordon is the Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences at Northwestern University and the author of the popular textbook Macroeconomics, which is now in its 12th edition. He was the treasurer of the Econometric Society for 30 years and a member of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee for three decades. He was included in Bloomberg’s 2013 list of the nation’s most influential thinkers.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76FsIlO06Xs




… And outside the Graduate Center

Paul Krugman was the Commencement Speaker at Bard College at Simon’s Rock Visit https://simons-rock.edu/students-families/commencement/paul-krugman-speech.php Paul Krugman was one of the speakers at the 2016 Inequality Workshop, entitled “Inequality by the Numbers: A Research Workshop on Socioeconomic Inequalities” and organized by the LIS Center (now: Stone Center on Socio-economic Inequality), held at the Graduate Center. Visit: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Centers-and-Institutes/Stone-Center-on-Socio-Economic-Inequality/Teaching-and-Training/Inequality-Workshop/2016-Inequality-Workshop “Paul Krugman with Gillian Tett: The State of the Economy.” In reference to the then-upcoming election, Paul Krugman explained his views on the economic issues the candidates should be focusing on, what the outcomes are likely to be, and what our key challenges will be in the next four years. Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0CRgW7Kafg NYT Athens Demography Forum on “Religion Migration Power + Money”, Athens, Greece: Paul Krugman in conversation with Yasheng Huang, Professor of Global Economics and Management , MIT Sloan School of Management, Yanis Varoufakis, Co-Initiator DiEM25 and Former Finance Minister, Greece, and Ross LaJeunesse, Global Head of Free Expression and International Relations, Google, on the following questions: Is democracy good for business, and is business good for democracy? Do the inclusive institutions of democracy promote entrepreneurship, leading to more growth and job creation, or do they constrain it? Are entrepreneurs a natural constituency for democratic change, or do they use their power and influence to shape the rules of the game in their favor? Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cDGhNOkNQw Paul Krugman delivered a lecture at the University of Zurich, entitled “What have we learnt from the crisis?” Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3pkhcbPdi8

26 June 2016

20 Sep 2016

21 May 2016

6-10 June 2016

13-17 Sep 2016



https://simons-rock.edu/students-families/commencement/paul-krugman-speech.php

http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Centers-and-Institutes/Stone-Center-on-Socio-Economic-Inequality/Teaching-and-Training/Inequality-Workshop/2016-Inequality-Workshop



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0CRgW7Kafg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cDGhNOkNQw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3pkhcbPdi8




Paul Krugman delivered a lecture at the University of Zurich, entitled “Can Europe Be Saved”. Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azcGz_E6Yrc&t=33s

As MacMillan Learning’s keynote speaker for 2016, Paul Krugman discussed the intersection of economics policy with technology, and education, and the impact on employment trends. Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMKUDhYfJbk

Paul Krugman delivered a keynote address "After the Elephant Diagram" at a conference on income inequality and inclusive growth on held by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) and the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). For more information, visit: https://piie.com and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTLRUF60AV8

Paul Krugman delivered the 2016 Robert B. Silvers Lecture at the New York Public Library. Visit: https://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/paul-krugman-robert-b-silvers-lecture

26 Sep 2016

2 Nov 2016

17 Nov 2016

6 Dec 2016



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azcGz_E6Yrc&t=33s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMKUDhYfJbk

https://piie.com/events/conference-income-inequality-and-inclusive-growth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTLRUF60AV8

https://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/paul-krugman-robert-b-silvers-lecture




GRADUATE CENTER FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS

Dissertation Year Fellowship ($22,000)

Timothy Roeper: “An Examination of the Impact of Regents Exams and Proximity to A Public College on Economic Opportunity.” Tim is writing his dissertation under the guidance of David Jaeger

Graduate Center Dissertation Award ($5,000) Morgan Williams: “Essays in the Economics of Crime and Mass Incarceration.” Morgan is writing his dissertation under the guidance of Michael Grossman.

Doctoral Students Research Grants Andreas Kakolyris: “Modeling blind principal bid: a large deviation approach” Efstathia Korkou: “Measurements of risk-taking behaviors across different demographic subgroups” Chiao-Han Lin: “Is drug prevalence exacerbated by dependent coverage?” Alev Yildirim: “Essays on banking and corporate finance”

ARC (Advanced Research Collaborative) Fellowship Orkideh Gharehgozli: Research on labor market, wage differentials, and inequality

STUDENT AWARDS 2015-2016






We are very appreciative of our Alumni participants in our departmental grants and fellowships. On behalf of the Economics Program, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for supporting our students. We hope that more of you will support existing funds and establish new funds that will help our students and academic activities in our department. Although our students enjoy more generous fellowships than most of you did when you were enrolled at the GC, few have stipends and many have to take substantial time from their studies to earn extra money (mostly through adjunct teaching) to finance their education. None of the fellowships cover any expenses incurred for conferences and research, which are absolutely essential for them to succeed in today’s highly competitive job market. Generous grants such as the Sallie Mae Bank awards allow them to concentrate on their studies, and contribute to their academic achievement.

In addition to helping students, it is our goal to add additional activities to revitalize the academic environment in the program with colloquia and lectures, visiting scholars, and invited speakers for which funding from GC sources is very limited.

For more information about making contributions to the Economics Program, please see page 24 of this newsletter.

ECONOMICS PROGRAM GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS

AWARDED IN 2016

Sallie Mae Bank Awards Yuan Wang Alev Yildirim Sori Yoo Jin Chung Salih Neftci Award (for best paper in Macro and Financial Economics) Oren Shmuel Alev Yildirim

Sallie Mae Travel Awards Alev Yildirim Nathanial Johnson Andreas Kakolyris Gowun Park Nadia Doytch Award (for best paper in International Macroeconomics and Finance) Evan Warshaw

Sallie Mae Bank Scholarships Hiroshi Morita Paloma Lopez De Mesa

Moyano Rachel Rosenfeld Biwei Chen Chiao-Han Lin Nicholas Bauer Orkideh Gharegozli Prabuddha Ghosh



mailto:[email protected]?subject=Nadia%20Doytch%20International%20Macroeconomics%20Award




*Note: Publications in final form pertaining to the calendar year of 2015 only. Otherwise, for example, a working paper written in 2015, accepted for publication in 2016 and appearing in print in 2017 might get credit three times. Kyle Bauser (’14) is now Senior Manager at Vascular Solutions and works within Corporate Development as well as Sales & Marketing. Esin Cakan (’08) published the paper “Does U.S. macroeconomic news make emerging financial markets riskier?” in Borsa Istanbul Review, 2015, 15(2):37-43 (coauthored with Nadia Doytch and K. Upadhyaya). Devaki Chandra (‘96) had not been in touch recently but wanted to update the Economics family through this newsletter. From 2003 to 2008, she worked and volunteered with a non-profit group called The Home of Comfort helping women recover from substance abuse to avoid jail, doing fund-raising and helping create jobs for them. In 2010, she published a chapter in Microfinance and Women’s Empowerment, S.K. Kaushik and V. Rengarajan, eds., New Delhi: Serials Publication, and in 2011, she published another chapter in Entrepreneurship and Development, G. R. Krishna, A. K Singh and S. Nagendra, eds., Sita Publication, Mumbai. She teaches Math and Economics at the Summer Institute for the Gifted (at UC Berkeley) and has two daughters, ages 19 and 12. Robert Kaestner (’88) published the paper “Identifying High-Quality Preschool Programs: New Evidence on the Validity of the Early Childhood Environment Rating in Relation to School Readiness Goals,” in Early Education and Development, 2015, 26:1086-1110 (coauthored with R.A. Gordon, K. Hofer, K. Fujimoto, N. Risk and Sanders Korenman). Kazutaka Kurasawa (’04) is now associate professor at Yamanasi Gakuin University in Japan.

Sara Markowitz (‘98) was promoted to Professor in the Department of Economics at Emory University. Henry Mo (’07) has been promoted to Chief Economist at AIG October this year. Alan C. Monheit (’75) published his paper with Joel C. Cantor, and Derek DeLia titled “Drawing plausible inferences about the impact of state dependent coverage expansions” in Health Services Research, 2015, 50(3):631-636, and his paper with Jessica Vistnes “Does public health insurance for children improve single mothers’ health care use?” in Journal of Family and Economic, 2015, 36(4):581-592. He was appointed in 2015 as Chair of Department of Health

ALUMNI NEWS*






Systems & Policy in Rutgers University School of Public Health. He was also awarded grant R01 from Agency For Healthcare Research & Quality: Economic Shocks and Family Health Security. Andre Neveu (’09) is now Associate Professor and granted tenure at James Madison University. He published his paper“A multifactor residual model examining macroeconomic factors and earnings volatility” in Atlantic Economic Journal, 2015, 43(2):229-245, and he co-authored with Nevin Cavusoglu the paper “The predictive power of survey-based exchange rate forecasts: is there a role for dispersion?” in Journal of Forecasting, 2015, 34(5):337-353.

Ce Shang (’11) is now Senior Research Scientist in Health Policy Center, Institute for Health Research and Policy (IHRP), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She reveived a University of Pennsylvania TCORS Pilot Research Grant and GSU TCORS Pilot Research Grant in 2015. She published five papers in 2015: “The association between point-of-sale advertising bans and youth experimental smoking: findings from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS)” AIMS Public Health, 2015, 2(4): 832-844 (J. Huang, Q. Li Q, and F.J. Chaloupka); “The association between tax structure and cigarette price variability: findings from the ITC Project,” Tobacco Control, 24 (Suppl 3) iii88-iii93 (co-authored with F.J. Chaloupka, G.T. Fong, M. Thompson, and R.J. O’Connor); “The use of legal, illegal and roll-your-own cigarettes to increasing tobacco excise taxes and comprehensive tobacco control policies: findings from the ITC Uruguay Survey” in Tobacco Control, 24 (Suppl 3): iii17-iii24 (coauthored with D. Curti, F.J. Chaloupka, G.T. Fong, and W. Ridgeway); “Weight control belief and its impact on the effectiveness of tobacco control polices on quit attempts: findings from the ITC Project,” Tobacco Control. Suppl 3:iii41-iii47 (F.J. Chaloupka, G.T. Fong, M. Thompson, M. Siahpush, and W. Ridgeway); and “The effect of smoke-free air law in bars on smoking initiation and relapse among teenagers and young adults,” International journal of environmental research and public health, 2015, 12(1): 504-520. Christopher Vaz (’96) has been promoted from Senior Associate Director, Policy, to Director, Health Analytics and Policy, at the American Hospital Association. He has been also appointed Board Co-Chair for the Allied Association Information Resources Network (A2IRNet), for 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.

Deborah Viola (’98) co-authored with P.S. Arno, K.A. Knapp and S. Russo the paper “Rising food insecurity and conservative policy in the US: impact on the elderly” in World Journal of Social Science Research, 2015, 2(1):13-22. Her paper with T. Maschi and Koskinen L. Trauma, titled “Stress and coping among older adults in prison: Towards a human rights and intergenerational family justice action agenda,” appeared in Traumatology, 2015, 21(3):188. In addition, she has been promoted to Vice President, Data Management & Analytics with the Westchester Medical Center Health Network in 2016. M. Vulanovic (’10) published the paper “Specified purpose acquisition companies in shipping,” Global Finance Journal, 2015, 26(1): 64-79 (coauthored with Yochanan Shachmurove)






*Note: Publications in final form pertaining to the calendar year of 2015 only. Otherwise, for example, a working paper written in 2015, accepted for publication in 2016 and appearing in print in 2017 might get credit three times. Terence Agbeyegbe published his paper “An inverted U-shaped crude oil price return-implied volatility relationship” in the Review of Financial Economics, 2015, 27:28-45. Linda Allen published her paper “Bank delays in the resolution of delinquent mortgages: the problem of limbo loans” in the Journal of Real Estate Research, 2015, 37(1):65-115. She also coauthored with A. Saunders in “Revisiting risk management in banking” in Oxford Bankers’ Handbook, A. Berger, P. Molyneux and J. Wilson, eds., 2015, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 160-183. Deborah Balk published her paper “Urbanization, women and weight gain: evidence from India, 1998-2006” in Spatial Demography, 2015, 3(1):1-25 (co-authored with A. Dev) and “A conceptual framework for an urban area typology to integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation” in Urban Climate, 2015, 14:116-137. She was also awarded as a Fellow of the Carnegie Corporation. Karna Basu coauthored with M. Wong the paper “Evaluating seasonal food storage and credit programs in east Indonesia,” which appeared in Journal of Development Economics, 2015, 115:200-216 and published “Behavioral economics and physician compensation -- Promise and challenges” in The New England Journal of Medicine, 2015, 372:2281-2283. Clive A. Belfield published five papers in 2015: “What about the non-completers? The labor market returns to progress in community college,” Economics of Education Review, 2015, 49:142-156 (coauthored with M. Zeidenberg and M. Scott); “Evaluating the Talent Search TRIO program: A Benefit-Cost Analysis and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis” Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, 2015, 6(3):572-602 (coauthored with B. Bowden); “The Economic Value of Social and Emotional Learning,” Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, 2015, 6(3):508-544; “Guiding the Development and Use of Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Education,” Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2015, 8(3): 400-418 (coauthored with H.M. Levin); and “The medium-term labor market returns to community college awards: Evidence from North Carolina,” Economics of Education Review, 2015, 44:42-55 (coauthored with V.Y.T. Liu and M. Trimble). Howard Chernick served as visiting scholar at the Centre de Recherche de la Sorbonne and Ecole Nationale Superieure Cachan in France. He was awarded a grant of $450,000 with Andrew Reschovsky and Sandra Newman for their paper “The housing market and the fiscal condition of America’s cities” by the MacArthur Foundation, 2013-2015. He also wrote a chapter, co-

FACULTY NEWS*






authored with Andrew Reschovsky, “The Fiscal Health of U.S. Cities”, in the book Is Your City Healthy? Measuring Urban Fiscal Health, edited by R.M. Bird and E. Slack, Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, 2015. Sean Crocket coauthored with Ted Joyce, David Jaeger, Onur Altindag (student), and Steve O’Connell (‘16) the paper “Does classroom time matter?” which was published in the Economics of Education Review, 2015, 46:64-77. Prabal De presented his paper “Flu vaccinations in Asian Indians: a case for improving health insurance coverage” at the 2015 APHA Annual Meeting & Expo, and he coauthored with T. Chakraborty the paper “Mother’s autonomy and child’s secondary schooling enrollment in Mexico,” which was published in the Review of Economics of the Household, 2015, 1-17. Nadia Doytch published “Introduction: managing natural resource wealth for development,” Comparative Economic Studies, 2015, 57(2): 300-304 (coauthored with R. Mendoza). She also coauthored with Esin Cakan (’08) and K. Upadhyaya the paper “Does U.S. macroeconomic news make emerging financial markets riskier?” in Borsa Istanbul Review, 2015, 15(2):37-43. And her paper “Sectoral FDI cycles in South and East Asia” appeared in the Journal of Asian Economics, 2015, 36:24-33. Timothy Goodspeed published his paper “Decentralization and natural disasters” in the Handbook of Multilevel Finance, ed. by E. Ahmad and G. Brosio, Edward Elgar Press, 2015. He also co-authored with Rosanne Altshuler the paper “Follow the leader? Evidence on European and US tax competition” in Public Finance Review, 2015, 43:485-504. Furthermore, he presented “Absorbing Shocks: the role of rainy day funds and transfers in a fiscal union” in May 2015 at the conference “More Europe or More Subsidiarity” in Freiburg, Germany, hosted by the Walter Eucken Institute, and in November 2015 at the National Tax Association Meetings in Boston, MA. Michael Grossman published his paper “The Relationship between Health and Schooling: What’s New?” Nordic Journal of Health Economics, 2015, 3(1):7-17. Also, as an update to his activities reported in the previous Newsletter, he gave the keynote address, titled “The Relationship between Health and Schooling: What’s New?” at the Fourth Congress of the Colombian Health Economics Association, Cali, Colombia, February 18-20, 2015; he gave a lecture entitled “The Relationship between Health and Schooling: What’s New?” as part of the prestigious Bertha C. and Roy E. Leigh Distinguished Lecture in Economics series at Washington State University on April 8, 2015; and he gave seminars at Columbia University on March 23, 2015, and at Washington State University on April 9, 2015. David Jaeger coauthored with Esteban Klor, Sami H. Miaari, and M. Daniele Paserman the paper “Can militants use violence to win public support? Evidence from the Second Intifada,” published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2015, 59(3):528-549. He also published “Does






classroom time matter?” published in the Economics of Education Review, 2015, 46:64-77 (coauthored with Theodore J. Joyce, Sean Crockett, Onur Altindag (student) and Steve O’Connell (‘16)). He also presented a paper at the conference Arbeitskreis geistliche Frauen im europäischen Mittelalter in Weingarten. Theodore Joyce co-authored with J. Reeder the paper “Changes in breastfeeding among WIC participants following implementation of the New Food Package” published in Maternal and Child Health Journal, 2015, 19:868-876. He also published “Does classroom time matter?” in the Economics of Education Review, 2015, 46:64-77 (coauthored with David Jaeger, Sean Crockett, Onur Altindag (student) and Steve O’Connell (‘16)). Norman Kleinberg published his paper “A note on the Sobolev consistency of linear symmetric values” published in Social Choice and Welfare, 2015, 44(4):765-779, and he received a Bert Wasserman Grant from the Department in the amount of $1,500. Sanders Korenman co-authored with R.A. Gordon, K. Hofer, K. Fujimoto, N. Risk and Robert Kaestner (’88) the paper “Identifying High-Quality Preschool Programs: New Evidence on the Validity of the Early Childhood Environment Rating in Relation to School Readiness Goals,” which was published in Early Education and Development, 2015, 26:1086-1110. Sebastiano J. Manzan published his paper “Forecasting the distribution of economic variables in a data-rich environment” in the Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 2015, 33(1):144-164, and he coauthored with D. Zerom the paper “Asymmetric quantile persistence and predictability: the case of US inflation”, published in the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2015, 77(2):297-318. Mathew Nagler published his paper “Negative externalities, network effects, and compatibility” in the International Journal of Economics and Finance, 2015, 7(6):1-16, and his paper “Trading off the benefits and costs of choice: Evidence from Australian elections” in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2015, 114:1-12. Steve O’Connell (‘16) published the paper “Does classroom time matter?” in the Economics of Education Review, 2015, 46:64-77 (coauthored with Sean Crocket, Ted Joyce, David Jaeger, and Onur Altindag (student)) and another paper “The spatial development of India” in the Journal of Regional Science, 2015, 55(1):10-30 (coauthored with K. Desmet, E. Ghani and E. Rossi-Hansberg). Francesc Ortega was awarded a 2015-2017 NSF Grant for the study of “H1-B Visas, Productivity and Innovation.” He published his paper “Migration Policies: Recent Advances on Measurement, Determinants and Outcomes” (co-authored with G. Peri) in CESIfo Economic Studies 2015, and he published “A Global View of Cross Border Migration” in the Journal of the






European Economic Association, 2015, 13(1):168-202 (co-authored with J. di Giovanni and A. Levchenko). Sangeeta Pratap received the Banamex Prize in Economics in 2016, along with her co-authors Carlos Urrutia and Felipe Meza, for their work “Credit, misallocation and productivity growth.” Yochanan Shachmurove published five papers during 2015: “Economic Policy After the Financial Crisis” Global Financial Turbulence in the Euro Area: Polish Perspective, 119-136 (coauthored with A. Nowak and K. Ryc); “Alternative method of measuring concentration” in Applied Mathematics and Information Sciences, 2015, 10(1):11-19 (coauthored with Z. J. Zawistowski, W. Szczesny, B. Borkowski and R. Kozera); “The responses of the prime rate to a change in policies of the Federal Reserve,” Journal of Economic Modelling, 2015, 46: 407-411 (coauthored with J. Friedman); “Specified purpose acquisition companies in shipping,” Global Finance Journal, 2015, 26(1): 64-79 (coauthored with M. Vulanovic (’10)); and “The risk of holding periods of international stock exchanges” International Journal of Business, 2015, 20(2):91-110 (co-authored with A. Nowak and T. Winkler-Drewsn). George Vachadze won a CSI Provost's Research Grant for his research on “Financial globalization, income inequality, and macroeconomic stability”, and he was tenured and promoted to the level of Associate Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics, College of Staten Island, effective Fall 2016. He co-authored with T. Kikuchi “Financial liberalization: Poverty trap or chaos” in the Journal of Mathematical Economics, 2015, 59:1-9. He also published “Credit market imperfection, financial market globalization, and catastrophic transition”, in Mathematics and Computers and Simulation, 2015, 108:41-62 (coauthored with A. Agliari and F. Rillosi). Liuren Wu published “Imports, exports, dollar exposures, and stock returns” in Open Economics Review, 2015, 26(5):1059-1079 (co-authored with S. Chakraborty and Y. Tang).

*Note: Publications in final form or accepted up to the date of writing this newsletter. Onur Altindag started a post-doctoral fellowship position at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, after depositing his dissertation in late summer 2016. He published the paper “Does classroom time matter?” in the Economics of Education Review, 2015, 46:64-77 (coauthored with Sean Crocket, Ted Joyce, David Jaeger, and Stephen O’Connell (‘16)). He also published a paper from his dissertation, entitled “Son Preference, Fertility Decline, and the Nonmissing Girls of Turkey,” in Demography , 30(2), 541-566, 2016

STUDENT NEWS*






In addition to the Sallie Mae Bank Award, Jin Chung received a USS Graduate Peer Mentoring Scholarship. This Scholarship is awarded to a graduate student for demonstrating a tremendous effort to help undergraduate or other graduate students through academic support, professional development, and leadership development within their college community. Andreas Kakolyris presented his paper "Modelling the blind principal bid mechanism: a large deviation approach" at the Southwestern Finance Association 2016 Annual Meeting. While still a student, Stephen O’Connell (‘16) coauthored the paper “How do electricity shortages affect industry? Evidence from India” with H. Allcott and A. Collard-Wexler, which was published in the American Economic Review, March 2016, 106 (3): 587-624. Gowun Park presented her research at the 69th Annual Conference of New York State Economics Association, Farmingdale, October 2016 Timothy Roeper presented “Measuring College Access and Its Effect on Economic Opportunity” at the Population Association of America Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. March 31, 2016 Raul Segura presented his research at the Sixth Biennial Conference of the American Society of Health Economists, Philadelphia, in June 2016 and at the 69th Annual Conference of New York State Economics Association, Farmingdale, October 2016 Evan Warshaw’s paper “Parallel Currency Markets and the Monetary Exchange Rate Model: A VECM Application to Turkey Over 1987–1998” was accepted at Eastern European Economics and is now available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/VwU5HXXfSDYXd4y7ZMBh/full .



http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/VwU5HXXfSDYXd4y7ZMBh/full




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Economics Program Newsletter 2015 - 2016...Economics Program Newsletter 2015 - 2016. Dear Friends...

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